OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said in a statement on Wednesday that the group is looking forward to the prospect of a partnership with Namibia, the hottest new oil frontier after Guyana, with new discoveries lining up and first production of 2.6 billion barrels planned for 2030.
"We are excited about the potential of the Namibian OPEC partnership and stand ready to offer support at this crucial juncture," Al Ghais said in a pre-recorded message at an international energy conference in Namibia.
"We are enthused by the discoveries in Namibia. Namibian oil and energy will be essential to meeting future demand," Al Ghais said, adding that the cartel encourages potential investors to dig deep into the venue.
Namibia, which now has OPEC's verbal support for potential cartel membership, would make up for the withdrawal of Angola last year due to production quotas designed to keep oil prices in check.
By the next decade, Namibia could be producing around 700,000 barrels per day of peak production capacity, Reuters reported, citing Rystad Energy. Angola, on the other hand, was producing 1.1 million bpd at the time of its exit from OPEC in December, the report noted.
On Monday, shares of Portugal's Galp Energia (OTCPK:GLPEF) (OTCPK:GLPEY) popped more than 20% after the company announced that the first phase of its exploration in the Mopane field in offshore Namibia could contain at least 10B barrels of oil. The Mopane field is located in the Orange Basin, where Shell Plc (NYSE:SHEL) and TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE) have made several oil and gas discoveries. Galp produced an average of just over 122,000 barrels of oil-equivalent per day in 2023.
Galp's discovery is comparable to the more than 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas contained in Guyana's Stabroek block, owned by Exxon, Hess and China's CNOOC.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
Charles is a writer for Oilprice.com More